Category: Listen To This

Today marks the tenth anniversary of Boys and Girls in America by The Hold Steady. Even the casual acquaintance has heard me stump for this album pretty much any occasion I get. But it’s the most meaningful and impactful musical document I know, and quite literally changed the trajectory of my life. I went from mopey college kid to someone who found a sense of purpose and community along the way. Of course that’s not without speed bumps, but that’s a different story.

I have so many thoughts about the record itself that are best said loudly and in person, preferably while playing the songs. This is still a common practice. Simply put, it’s a marvel of rock and roll construction: “Stuck Between Stations,” is quite possibly THE best leadoff rock song in history – the opening lyrics reveal the thesis: “There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right…Boys and Girls in America have such a sad time together.” Crashing guitars, dancing pianos, a tight-as-hell rhythm section and Craig Finn’s lyrics and BOOM, we’re in to the thick of one of the most essential albums ever.

What I loved about this record as a 20-year old has morphed over time. While I loved the songs and the lyrics that made great Facebook statuses (I’m learning this daily thanks to the ‘On This Day’ feature) it’s been so much less about the music and more about the people. That’s continued for a decade.

My college friends sort of tapered off in the months after the album’s release, so I joined the band’s message board in 2007. There, I found a bunch of like-minded individuals and families filing scene reports from all over the states and Canada, sometimes Europe, or proselytizing for bands I’d never heard of – Drive-By Truckers, Lucero, some group called the Mountain Goats. It became a place of community and education. These were lawyers, students, photographers, people with insisted on being called by their pen names instead of their real names, a lady who talked about how much she liked a group called the “Ass Ponys”, bible salesmen and self-described “rabble rousers”. I’d never met anyone like these people before. But they welcomed me in, for better or worse.

The next year, I started traveling to see the band. I’d crash in strangers hotels when our car would get locked in a garage overnight, get rained on all day in an abandoned pool and meet my best friend in the process, end up in parts of North America I’d otherwise have no business being in. Friends of friends I’d met through the band would help me move to New York. I’d forget to close my mouth more than once when throwing confetti and gambled for the first time in a casino in the middle of nowhere, Wisconsin. There are so many other stories, but they’re just not fit for public consumption.

I’d get to know the group, slowly, some of the members better than the others, and be able to call them friends or temporary roommates. For someone who has seen them at such an exaggerated clip, their good-naturedness and trust that I was not completely insane was always appreciated. That extends to their crew, an extremely patient bunch that went out of their way countless times to be kind to us in whatever city we were in. Eventually, we’d all work together, which still is a total dream come true.

As with time, I’m grateful for all the people that have come in and out of my life. So many of these are true friends I’ve been able to lean on when things did not look that sunny. Some I’ve met in person once or twice, or not at all, but we maintain that closeness. You know who you are. Growing older along with a band and its fans doesn’t really happen a lot, especially when you’re just starting your 20’s. I know many times and for many years I was not the best version of myself. So, if you’re reading this and knowing what I’m talking about, thanks for sticking around.

Ultimately, Boys and Girls in America is the story of the people that The Hold Steady brought together through their music, who built a community and changed the lives of a lot of people. As I look back on the past ten years, I’ve still got a lot of work to do, but through the totality of the experience of just playing some songs, I’ve grown into someone that I like being. It’s given me so many people important to my everyday life, incredible experiences and stories that no one else will ever have, and mostly, a freedom to just be who I am and love what I love. When we eventually dry up and crumble into dust, hopefully it will inspire a new group of people to do the same.

I thought about how to best collect my thoughts on Teeth Dreams, the sixth album by The Hold Steady, for several weeks after I first heard it. I’m intrinsically tied to the band in more ways than I can articulate, so giving anything less than my feelings surrounding this release would feel totally inauthentic. It’s probably best to start with some context.

Heaven is Whenever was the sound of transition. A lot was happening with the band in 2010. Keyboardist Franz Nicolay had left, taking with him the barroom drama that permeated their first four records. Sonically, they took many chances with instrumentation and production that took the focus away from the trademark guitar element and focused more on atmospherics. The result was admirable, but came away feeling a lot less like a Hold Steady record than anything that preceded it. Less celebration, more darkness. The scene seemed a little less sunny.

That wasn’t the only change. The album’s first tour showed the band trying out a six-piece three-guitar, bass and keys lineup. It didn’t quite gel as much as it powered through each show with sheer force. By winter, they’d pared down to a five-piece. Steve Selvidge was installed as a full time member, bringing with him guitar texturization and muscle that wasn’t present with Tad Kubler and Craig Finn’s previous interplay. Just like that, the band pivoted from ‘bar band’ to ‘guitar band’.

You wouldn’t have picked up on the change if you didn’t see them live in the interim. For many, Heaven felt like an abdication, going from one knockout record after another to something that felt less full and more like it was compensating for a missing element. Perhaps that was the case, but it could also be said it was also the product of trying to do too much in too little time in the face of major change.

But here we are four years later with Teeth Dreams. To put how long that is into context: in that time, their contemporaries Guided By Voices got back together and released five new albums while singer Robert Pollard put out SEVEN of his own. Sure, it’s an extreme example, but it’s not entirely far off. These guys made their name trying to keep up with Uncle Bob in more ways than one at some point in their career.

The album begins with the propulsive rocker, “I Hope This Whole Thing Didn’t Frighten You”, which quickly gives way to the shimmering “Spinners”. Here Finn sings “Heartbreak hurts, but you can dance it off,” Full of bright guitars and a propane-fueled solo, it’s the closest thing The Hold Steady has ever written as a crossover hit.

Next up is “The Only Thing”, a slice of jangle pop infused with organ by studio musician Al Gamble that’s both a wink to their past as well as a distillation of present. It’s a dexterous move by the band, a song only accomplished by a few years away from recording, and in turn it is one of the album’s best.

Speaking of highlights, “On With The Business” comes at the album’s midpoint. Here, Finn reaches “maximum Craig”, spitting a dizzying array of lyrics (“Blood on the carpet/mud on the mattress/waking up with that American sadness”) over anxious guitars, building towards a vocal delay bit that replicates his lyrical repetition off mic at their live show. Finally, it segues into an absolutely face-melting guitar solo.

Overall, the album showcases another layer of depth that was not apparent in previous Hold Steady recordings. This is for a few reasons. Producer Nick Raskulinecz, who admittedly did not know much about the band prior to recording, seemed to instinctively know how to handle the band’s lineup and play best to their strengths. The guitar duo of Tad Kubler and Steve Selvidge provide stunning guitar textures, while bassist Galen Polivka and drummer Bobby Drake (who has never sounded better) re-establish themselves as one of rock’s best rhythm sections.

While this collection of songs mostly focuses on loud, immediate rock and roll, the emotional one-two punch of “Almost Everything” and album closer “Oaks” cannot be understated. “Almost Everything” is a quiet ballad that is a sonic cousin with earlier songs like “First Night” and “Lord I’m Discouraged”. While it doesn’t crest quite like those songs, it’s just as beautiful.

There is nothing The Hold Steady has ever created like “Oaks”. Clocking in at over nine minutes, it’s a sprawling masterwork that kneads and twists through peaks and valleys, with Finn conjuring dreamlike images as the song turns the corner with a gorgeous melodic solo carrying the song through its final minutes. Kubler stated that at one point he felt that this would be the last record he’d make with Finn. If this were goodbye, it’s a hell of a way to go. While there has always been sentimentality in Hold Steady songs, this one feels like it has real stakes. It’s just heavier.

For a band that looked like they may not make another record, Teeth Dreams is an album that pulls off an impressive magic trick. It’s a return to form for a group that looked like they lost their way, while alternately showcasing who they are now. Ultimately, it’s a portrait of a band that has the gift of hindsight and the confidence to make changes when they’re most critical. We benefit from it, and they’re better for it.

Without further adieu, here’s my top ten favorite albums of this year (in order), and then my favorite songs of the year (in no particular order).

Top Albums of 2013:

1. Jason Isbell – Southeastern

The story goes like this: Former Drive-By Trucker who regularly outshines his peers with his contributions leaves the band amidst a variety of personal issues. Spends the next few years cutting good-not-great solo records. Finally sobers up and puts out this collection of crystalline beauties that are not just a stone-cold classic this year, but in ANY year.

Check out: “Cover Me Up”, “Flying Over Water”, “Relatively Easy”

2. HAIM – Days Are Gone

Hearing “The Wire” for the first time was one of those fulcrum listens. Either it was going to be the best thing HAIM ever did, or it was just a taste of what the band was capable of.

Luckily, it was the latter – the sisters beat the hype and wrote a record of sun-kissed classics. Make no mistake, this is pure pop appropriated for an indie audience. You know that’s true. “I know, I know, I know, I know” that too.

Check out: “The Wire”, “Falling”, “Running If You Call My Name”

3. Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels

El-P and Killer Mike took the hip-hop world by storm last year with their solo releases – El’s “Cancer For Cure” and Killer Mike’s “R.A.P. Music” (which El-P produced in its entirety). Both guested on each other’s records. Both also landed on many year-end lists.

So what to do for a victory lap? Join forces, obviously. The eponymous debut from Run the Jewels was released for free on the internet this June. What could have been phoned in with the cut-and-paste feel of a mixtape is instead a tight collection of straight-up bangers with monster beats. El-P and Killer Mike seamlessly flow into each other’s rhymes with bravado. No – scratch that. Gusto.

Check out: “Run the Jewels”, “36” Chain”, “Sea Legs”

4. The National – Trouble Will Find Me

The National – at least from “Alligator” and forward, have brilliantly constructed top to bottom classic records that give the air that they were furniture, they’d be refined from the most skilled of woodworkers. Every sound is considered before the final product. Allegedly, on an earlier release, they recorded the same drum sound an exhaustive number of times until it ‘sounded right’.

If anything, “Trouble Will Find Me” is a surprise. It’s the sound of a band loosening the reigns for the first time. The songs feel more organic. They have a sense of space that’s not part of any of the earlier releases. If there’s any knock on it, is that it sort of feels like a band in transition. What you get here is a band pushing the boundaries out just a little more. It’s exhilarating for them, and it’s exhilarating for the listener. But you can’t help but think what they’ll do next time.

Check out: “I Should Live In Salt”, “Sea Of Love”, “I Need My Girl”

5. John Moreland – In The Throes

Admittedly, this is a late addition to this year’s list, but a well-deserved one. Oklahoma-based Moreland delivers a thirty-eight minute gut punch. It’s intimate. It’s vulnerable. It’s big-hearted. It’s an album full of simply great songs delivered simply. No bullshit.

At this point, even giving a brief rundown of Kanye’s album-by-album trajectory is pointless. His public persona and his role of an artist are now so diametrically opposed that the thought he’s actually a working musician is an afterthought. Everyone has an opinion about Kanye West. He has many about himself. The amount of noise between the artist and the public is overwhelming, from fans to non-fans. That’s the best thing that ever happened to him – it freed him to do whatever he wants in the studio.

So, he does.

For as spontaneous as some of his other career moves seem, “Yeezus” is quite the opposite. It’s a carefully crafted, reductionist masterwork, laying waste the grandeur of much of his previous work. The beats are brutal, guest spots as brilliant as they are puzzling (Justin Vernon and Chief Keef on the same track?), and the message unfettered: he’s taking no prisoners.

We’re far past the point where a Kanye West album is a showcase of peerless production and top-notch talent. It’s art for art’s sake. He might even agree with that. Everyone else might too, if they stopped talking and listened for a change.

Check out: “On Sight”, “I Can’t Hold My Liquor”, “Bound 2”

7. Laura Marling – Once I Was An Eagle

The sense of insularity and delicate nature of Laura Marling’s fourth album leaves me fighting myself to compare it to the great early records of Joni Mitchell. Obviously by typing that sentence, I’ve failed. Perhaps the best way to put it is to suggest “Once I Was An Eagle” is its spiritual cousin. The four-song opening suite is startling and effortless, delivered with the maturity of a person far beyond her 23 years. From there it ebbs and flows, (“Master Hunter” is a definite highlight) one beautiful melody and texture after another. It’s an album best experienced in one sitting. You’ll know that as soon as it begins.

Check out: “Take The Night Off”, “I Was An Eagle”, “Master Hunter”

8. Deafheaven – Sunbather

We live in the time of the egregious usage of the word ‘epic’. Here’s an album worthy of the phrase. On “Sunbather” walls of whatever-brand-of-metal you call it and sweeping melodic passages combined with bridge effortlessly with vocalist George Clarke’s screams to create a whole that is like nothing else I’ve ever heard. I may not understand a damn word he’s saying, but the sheer ferocity of his vocals seize your attention. It’s metal for non-metalheads – beauty in a genre where you expect something ugly.

Check out: “Dream House”, “Irresistable”, “Vertigo”

9. Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City

In the summer of 2008 I watched Vampire Weekend perform selections from their debut album to a crowd of thousands at Pitchfork Music Festival. Then, they were a relatively unseasoned live act, a fine listen, but not quite capable of that knockout punch of the others that played the stage the same day. My feelings of their debut album and it’s follow up were similar to this – songs that were okay for the moment, but didn’t hold a whole lot of resonance. I figured they’d be fun to bring up for a laugh a few years down the road or to recapture that moment when we were just a little bit younger and thought we were a little bit hipper.

Instead, they grew up with us. “Modern Vampires of the City” is a headfirst plunge into uncharted territory. It’s a series of calculated risks for a group that treaded dangerous waters as a very (popular) one trick pony. Here, the band deals with heavier themes such as life and death. Look no further than the pitch-shifting prowess of “Diane Young” (Get it?) for example. The differences are also textural – the wispy “Step” and soothing synths of “Everlasting Arms” are obvious departures. The big takeaway though – there’s plenty of nuance here when none was ever really expected.

Check out: “Unbelievers”, “Step”, “Everlasting Arms”

10. Disclosure – Settle

The debut by English brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence kind of passed me by on first listen. I didn’t think much of it and shuffled it away pretty quickly.

Then I heard “Latch”, a perfect piece of elastic electro-pop. It turns out that’s just the gateway into the many gifts that this record holds. Jessie Ware drops in for the robot slink of “Confess To Me”, and “F For You” competes with London Grammar on “Help Me Lose My Mind” for the second best hook on the album. I’m going to stop now – play this album and get ready to dance.

A few days ago I downloaded an app called The Vinyl District that uses GPS to find your nearest record stores. Thats when I was directed to Rediscover Records in Elgin, Illinois. It’s a store within another store located in the downtown area. It’s a nice little space, with plenty of new vinyl from a variety of genres (ie: the new Tom Waits next to a mint copy of “Master Of Puppets”).

What really got me though was their used selection. For $10.75, I scored the following:

Bob Dylan’s “born-again” era is the most forgotten, least-treaded or too generalized of his entire catalog. It’s the inkstain on his mythos. No one really wants to talk about it, and Dylan himself is often vague of the period. But one thing’s certain: 1979’s Slow Train Coming is some of his most inspired, frighteningly honest material since his heyday as a young singer-songwriter living in the West Village. Most of the album is wrought with conviction and praise is framed beautifully by the guitar of Dire Straights axman Mark Knopfler by the album’s final track is a propulsive, powerful ballad that is nothing more than Dylan and piano accompaniment. “How long can you falsify and deny what is real?,’ he questions, before rounding the killer couplet: “How long can you hate yourself for the weakness you conceal?”

Frank Turner is Billy Bragg for post-millenial hardcore kids. His songs straddle a fine line of folk music with punk rock energy. So much of his work is hook-heavy, songs seem to eclipse their albums, much like Bragg’s work. That’s frustrating a lot of the time, but not in this case. “I Still Believe” is the lead track from Turner’s stopgap “Rock & RollEP. Characteristic lilting vocals, call and response choruses, and shout outs to “Jerry Lee and Johnny and all the greats” make it a fun four minutes. There’s no real message here, and that’s okay. It’s a good example of why EP’s exist.

What’s great about Merrill Garbus is the deliberate incongruence of her songs. Rarely anything she does sounds natural. It’s cut up, shuffled and reconstituted with the strength of a glue stick, and that’s what makes it so exhilarating. There’s no better example than this song, layered vocals, caddywompus horns and a prowling beat keeping it together. At first listen, her latest album W H O K I L L sounds like several loose ends, but with repeated listens, the songs weave a pretty brilliant tapestry.

I love this song exactly for what it is: A killer pop single. Sonically, nothing seems to connect it to the same five people that made classics like Rumours and Tusk. Stevie Nicks often is the face for this band, but Fleetwood Mac have always seemed to be far more democratic when it comes to lead vocals on their singles. For this particular song, Christine McVie is up front, Nicks in the back, and Lindsey Buckingham is relegated to an echo. The hook is monstrous, and anyone growing up listening to pop radio in the late 80’s and early 90’s has that chorus imprinted on their consciousness. Girl Talk even appropriated it for “Overtime” from Night Ripper. To put it into Cheap Trick terms, it’s “The Flame” to their “Surrender”.

Imagine losing your job without any idea of what to do next. Well, other than looking for another job. There’s also that romantic idea of moving somewhere tropical, living off the grid and enjoying what’s around you. It’s fun, but not something that’s easy to do with bills and responsibilities in the way. Not for Houses. They just took off.

It’s an admirable, albeit unsustainable idea. I’ve always dreamed of doing what they did, but never had the guts to see it through. It seemed on the whim, and one enormous leap of faith. Not much later, they were working and living in Papaikou, Hawaii, learning the basics of sustainable living.

More often than not, this lifestyle does not work out for most people. But Houses are not most people. After finally running out of cash several months later, they returned to Chicago, but not empty handed.. With them, they had a gorgeous snapshot of their time on the island, All Night, their debut on Lefse, due next month.

Rarely do I hear a record so elemental and effortless. Its title track is the sound of those first few moments of waking up on a spring morning while rays of sunshine bleed through the blinds. Other moments are dewey eyed and bleary, like taking a long nap in the grass. Perhaps the freshness of these moments is best exemplified with “Endless Spring,” a glistening pearl where frontman Dexter Tortoriello’s vocals mesh beautifully with the sounds alongside them. The same goes for the harmonies provided by Houses’ other half, Megan Messina. This is consistent throughout: never once on the disc do their vocals feel put-upon. They’re just as organic as the field recordings they made in Hawaii.

These moments are bountiful on All Night. There’s “Soak It Up,” sounding devastatingly like a late Arthur Russell composition, “Wash,” with its deliberate rhythm would make David Byrne proud, and of course, the sweeping, resplendent surge of “Sleeping” and “Sun Fills”.

With that final fade, we’re back to the beginning again, if you see it that way. I don’t. It lacks a beginning and end point. It just simply exists. It was always there, just captured and put to tape at the right moment. That’s doesn’t happen too often in music, and when it does, like All Night, it’s something incredible.

About

This site has been a lot of things over time. A hub for my friends to write whatever they want, a web magazine, the home of The Eternal Mixtape Project, and for the better part of the last half-decade, a place for me to put whatever I’m thinking…occasionally.
It’s the longest-lasting creative endeavor I’ve ever had and I’m proud of the body of work that's here, both of my own and those who have contributed.
Enjoy.